UTRGV celebrates 2019 with another year of successes

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – This year was jam-packed with activities and significant changes for the UTRGV community, to include defining accomplishments like:

Repeats of the UTRGV Chess Team’s state and national victories.

The announcement of an innovative free-tuition program.

New and expanded courses and degrees.

Critical scientific and health-related research.

A long (and constantly growing) list of national and international accolades for students, faculty and staff.

And the appearance of our mascot, The Vaquero.

President John F. Kennedy famously said, “Things don’t happen, they are made to happen.”

As a university community, UTRGV’s students, staff and faculty continue to make things happen – day to day, year over year – facing challenges, overcoming obstacles and creating myriad and complex pathways into the future.

As we head into the new year, we know we have hard work ahead. The first class of the UTRGV School of Medicine will graduate in 2020. We will be gazing up at the stars and scoping the ocean floor. We hope you will listen for our music; seek out the weight of our letters; and absorb our colorful brush strokes.

For the next few minutes, though, please take a look back at some of UTRGV’s important – or just plain fun – stories of 2019.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.